#3: You’re Copying Others

This is something every business falls victim to — but it probably kills more pages than anything else.

Page owners see a large page like Coca-Cola posting a photo about the beach and it gets 1000s of Likes and comments. So they immediately think they should post a similar picture and receive similar results.

Makes sense right?

Wrong!

You’re not Coca-Cola and shouldn’t expect to get even close to the same results.

Page owners need to figure out what works best for their page — not what some “guru” said in a webinar or in a blog post!

#4: You Don’t Have a Posting Strategy

I spend the majority of my day helping small business owners figure out what and when to post on their pages and what I’ve discovered is most people build a page and then start to post just whenever and whatever they feel like.

They’ll post 3 times on Monday within an hour, then not post for 4 days, then on Friday post 10 posts and wonder why no one is commenting or Liking their posts.

Whenever we hear complaints of people not seeing engagement on their Page, most of the time that business has not taken the time to experiment with different Facebook posts — ie. photos, videos, questions, funny updates, serious updates.

Too often businesses post whatever they want & leave their fans out of the equation.

Discovering what excites your audience is the best thing a business can do for their Facebook Page.

Business owners need to determine what their goals are for their page and how that coincides with the posts made to the page.

There are 4 main types of posts you can make on your page:

Text only Posts (statuses)

Link Posts

Photo Posts

Video Posts

If you are wanting to drive traffic to your website post Link posts — but don’t expect much engagement on those posts (that’s ok).

My recommendation is to have a good mix of all of these. Perhaps you decide to post 4 times per day and 2 of those posts will be to drive traffic.

Your posting schedule might look like this (keep in mind I’m not saying this should be your posting schedule — use this as a guide only):

8am- Photo update — goal is engagement

12pm- Link post — goal is to drive traffic to your site

5pm- Text only update — goal is engagement

9pm- Link post — goal is traffic

You can see that by mixing in engagement posts between traffic related posts the fans that have interacted with my page most recently should see my link posts — thus potentially driving more traffic to my site.

No matter what your strategy is make sure you have one!

#5: You Use Your Page as Your SoapBox

This might be the most dangerous action I see businesses take when it comes to their Facebook page…

Posting political or religious rants on their Facebook BUSINESS page.

It’s a very tempting thing to do — especially when your page has seen some huge growth and has 10s of 1000s of followers.

But it will kill you pretty much overnight!

I’ve seen it happen many times and even first hand.

I may have Liked the page for Bill’s Bikes because I like their store and bought a bike from them — but I didn’t opt-in to hear their political rants.

While a big business, like say AT&T, might be able to pull off talking about politics and avoid alienating their entire fan base, a small business cannot do that.

A few things happen when you start sharing your political beliefs on your business page.

You get people who agree with you 100% — and they’ll be right there with you, fist pumping & hooping & hollering. That’s great. But what about the rest of the fans — the ones who are silent?

The fans that stay silent are the ones you need to worry about. They may not comment and say the agree or disagree with your posts (whether political or not). Instead they’ll just hide, unlike or ignore your page.

I’m a huge advocate for a page having a personal feel and touch to it. People like to know the real person behind the page (kinda like in the Wizard of Oz) — but there is a line you shouldn’t cross. And politics is one of them.

This monthly Facebook column is contributed by Scott Ayres. Scott blogs for and heads up training for the Facebook scheduling app Post Planner as their brand evangelist as well as podcasts on the popular show "Facebook Answerman." +Scott Ayres

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About Scott Ayres

This monthly Facebook column is contributed by Scott Ayres. Scott blogs for and heads up training for the Facebook scheduling app Post Planner as their brand evangelist as well as podcasts on the popular show "Facebook Answerman." +Scott Ayres

Comments

Good one, Scott. I agree with everything you’ve said. It takes some practice to get comfortable with your posting strategy and “voice” of your page but once you get the groove, you will be producing and sharing great content and people will be drawn back to the page. Many businesses today are looking for a magical formula to get them X results, and it doesn’t work directly like that.

Thanks Scott! I just read a blog about facebook. I have considered my group of friends who share our common health interests. We let it all hang out and share content that is inspirational and encouraging to each other. I have not looked into it as a way to attract more readers to my blog.

I love the fact that you love to teach. I love to learn about social media and am so glad to have found your blog. The warnings you give are awesome. I knew there was a reason that I had not gotten into buying likes and all the other hype.

Your genuine concern in helping business and bloggers grow is thoughtful and honest.

Indeed, buying Facebook likes and shares won’t do any help. I’d like to add that faking your traffic and may end up increasing it without converting them into leads and that’s the worst part ever. It will also be hard for you to analyze your google analytics since the sources of traffic are hard to distinguished whether it’s organic or fake.

Indeed, purchasing Facebook or myspace prefers and stocks will not do any help. I’d like to add that acting your visitors and may end up improving it without transforming them into brings and that is the most severe aspect ever. It will also be difficult for you to evaluate your search engines statistics since the resources of visitors are difficult to recognized whether it’s natural or bogus.